With a sprint into the water of Bear Creek Lake Park on Thursday morning, the University of Denver Women's Triathlon Team officially opened its in-season training for the 2021 campaign.
 
The Pioneers program is in their second season of existence and began group training with a two-a-day workout of sorts. After starting with open water swimming at the regional park in nearby Lakewood at 8 a.m., the squad closed the day in the afternoon with cycling back on the Denver campus. The first day actually featured three workouts as DU hit the gym in between the outdoor training sessions, focusing on mobility, dynamic and strength movements.
 

The team is all here. First day of training is underway. pic.twitter.com/heiFGRP4gP

— Denver Women's Triathlon (@denverwomenstri) August 19, 2021

 
While the women have been training and competing on their own all summer in preparation for this year, this early-season camp gauges the fitness of the student-athletes and sets the expectations for the fall. The Pioneers' nine-member squad includes a five-person recruiting class and graduate student Emily Pincus, who was an NCAA swimmer at South Dakota State the past four years.
 
The 2021 freshmen feature Bella Chirafisi, Olivia Ebenstein, Avarie Faulkner, Freya McKinley and Marta Meinardi, all of whom have a Triathlon background and possess varying degrees of strength in the swim, run and bike portions. However, they also own one vital thing for second-year head coach Barbara Perkins.
 
"They were willing to kind of take a leap of faith and go outside of their comfort zone to come to Denver and to come to this program," Perkins said. "I thought that spoke a lot about them as people because some other people don't want to stand out. They kind of want to stand in line and be part of the rest of the group. All of these girls wanted to step up and be young leaders for the team."
 

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While these training days are meant to help them be ready to compete at the four meets ahead of the NCAA National Championships on Nov. 13, they also aim to build chemistry among the triathletes and the foundation of the squad's culture.
 
"Come together and learn about each other and depend on each other and know that we can step up in hard situations, and that they don't even have to question that," Perkins said. "They can just know that their teammates will be there for them."
 
The Pioneers only competed in one event in the inaugural season, which was delayed to the spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The squad made its NCAA debut at the two-day Clermont Challenge in Florida on March 6-7 and featured three top-10 finishers in the opening race.
 
Now, the Pios have two-and-a-half weeks to prepare for their first competition of the 2021 season, the Pleasant Prairie Regional Qualifier in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, on Sept. 4. The team will then compete two weeks later at the Oktoberfest Sprint in Longmont, Colorado.

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